book club keeps sending books - do I have to return them?

[fruitful]

I was a member of a book club for a while - the sort that sends you a magazine with an "editor's choice" every couple of months, and sends you the book if you don't say that you don't want it.

I cancelled my membership last November. Since then they haven't sent me any magazines, but they have sent me the editor's choice books. The first lot arrived while I was in hospital; when I got home I just wrote the return address on the front of the parcel in big letters and threw the parcel back in the post box (didn't put stamps on). Today I got another one, and unfortunately it fitted through the letter box, or I could have refused to take it.

Anyway, I've told the club about it. What do I legally have to do? Do I have to pay to return them? Do I have to bother returning them at all? (not that I want to keep them!).

Not sure exactly where you stand legally but don't keep the books and send them a letter reiterating that you have cancelled your membership.

My mum has been in a similar position with World Books and got into a terrible muddle. She cancelled membership but hadn't taken the minimum number of books that year and got debt collection letters for a bill in lieu. If you accept any books you may inadvertently reinstate your membership. They still send her their monthly magazines inviting her to purchase even though she has officially cancelled and should have been taken off their mailing list.

my friends dad kept getting sent them even after he died.
they had to send a copy of his death certificate to prove it

Send them a letter stating when you cancelled your membership and that should they continue to send you unsolicited books you will keep them until they arrange to collect them.

I think that if you are sent unsolicited items through the post you are entitiled to keep them.

I did this with Books For Children and they a) collected the book very quickly and b) never sent me another one.

Righto. I've sent them an email - we'll see if they reply!

I was sent a whole box of books from one of these once - it had been ordered by the people that lived in the house before me and I didn't have a forwarding address. I phoned the company and asked what i should do with them and they said I should send them back I politely explained that they were their books so they should come and get them so....they told me I could keep them! (Cheap Xmas for me that year )

I am at my wit's end with Books for Children! They took 4 months to cancel my membership, sent me further Editor's Choice in the meantime, apologised to me on 28th February and told me I owed nothing ... a week later they wrote saying I owed nearly £30! Several unanswered communications later, on 2nd April a courier turned up to "collect returns" and took away the only books I have ever had but not paid for. They still say I owe them money, and have added a £4.50 admin charge. Today, I received a letter dated 10th May giving me 7 days "from the date of this letter" to pay or they will add more penalty charges and instruct a Debt Collection Agency. There is, I think, a salutory tale in here, and "Fruitful", if the e-mail support department tells you one thing, my experience has taught that you should not imagine for one minute that the Credit Control Department knows about it! I have taken the matter up with the Direct Marketing Authority and Trading Standards and suggest you do the same.